


With That

by agberts



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Elevators, M/M, Prompt Fill, flirting over cybernetics, rhack - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 20:09:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4759376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agberts/pseuds/agberts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhys and Handsome Jack get stuck in an elevator together. Pre-events of TFTB.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> from anon on tumblr  
> Different First Meeting AU: Rhys and Jack get stuck in an elevator.  
> I thought that I would crosspost from tumblr.

Rhys swore up and down that this was the last time he was going to stay late in the office. He had sworn that last week too but as always, Rhys’ luck was shit. Nothing good ever happened when he stayed late. The first time back when he was a bright-eyed intern, his cybernetic arm broke and he was stuck in the Robotics Department almost all night. The second time, he ended up walking in on two amorous co-workers. Last time, the one last week, Rhys had had the misfortune of running into Vasquez. What a headache.

This time was arguably better than waking up at his desk, missing the ten hours between 5 PM and 3 AM as well as his favorite tie. So this was not the worst time but Rhys would still rather be at home, kicking back for shitty TV with Vaughn and Yvette.

The whole problem came back to the elevator. For some ungodly reason, it was crawling down the floors at a snail’s pace. The numbers at the top ticked at an infuriating rate. 

If there were stairs that traveled from this side of Helios all the way down to the residential area, Rhys would have gladly taken them. Or at least stairs that would take him to a different level that was serviced by a different elevator. The hopefully thinking was just that. Hopeful thinking that nothing good could come from. Better to just wait.

And wait.

And wait.

In reality, Rhys only stood there for about twenty minutes waiting for the numbers above the door to tick their way down from the top floor to his. It was awfully boring. The late hour meant that no one was answering his messages. Everyone who wasn’t insane or working desperately on a project to impress their boss was asleep by now.

So when the doors did open, Rhys jumped without even noticing someone else was already occupying the car. So excited was he that when he hit the button, Rhys whooped. 

“I’ve honestly never seen someone so goddamn excited to press a button in my life,” commented the other passenger. Rhys jumped about a foot in the air and squeaked embarrassingly. The man laughed.

Rhys very slowly turned to face the man and was met with the iconic visage of Handsome Jack himself.

“Sir-,” Rhys stammered out. “Don’t you have a private elevator?”

Handsome Jack waved his question out of the air. “First thing you should know about running the richest company in the universe, pumpkin, is that you shouldn’t run more expensive equipment than you have too.”

“I guess,” Rhys answered. “But why would this elevator be turned on?”

On that suspicious note, the elevator ground to a halt with a horrifying groan. It shook twice before stilling. 

Handsome Jack checked his watch. “Looks like it just has.” He cursed and rounded on the door. He gave it a good hard kick before paging someone over ECHOnet. Rhys could only hear one side of the conversation. “Fix the elevator… I don’t care… What do I pay you for?… Fine. We’ll wait if we have to… Yes there is someone else in the elevator. No they aren’t dead, what kind of monster do you take me for?… Okay.”

“Was that someone who can get us out?” Rhys asked. 

“Yeah, they said an hour. The moment I get out I’m gonna shove whoever designed the elevator lock-down system out of the airlock. And then everyone who worked on the elevators since. Wait no, they deserve worse,” Handsome Jack ranted. Rhys tuned him out the best he could, especially when the CEO started enumerating on exactly how he was going to punish the poor designers.

Rhys sank down into the corner of the elevator, content to daydream about what his bed felt like. Handsome Jack seemed to be about to erupt in anger and Rhys curling up into the smallest target possible was partially a survival instinct. He was starting to regret all those times that he had fantasized about meeting Handsome Jack. He nodded off into an uneasy sleep.

Rhys jerked into wakefulness when a hand touched his shoulder. Handsome Jack towered over him, expression unreadable. “Can I help you?” Rhys asked in a small voice.

“Just checking out your arm,” Handsome Jack said. “Do you usually sleep with it on?” Rhys knew he wasn’t supposed to but sometimes he did and that’s not anyone else’s business. The way Handsome Jack asked made it seem like he already knew the answer and Rhys should fess up or risk twice the wrath.

Rhys wordlessly unhooked his cybernetic arm from its socket and handed it to Handsome Jack. He examined it with a spark of admiration in his eye. He ran his fingers along the Hyperion yellow plating. He tested each joint from the thumb to the wrist to the elbow. “Not bad,” he said when he tossed it back. “I like it when my employees wear shit that my company makes.” Rhys shrugged helplessly as he reattaches his arm.

The moment it was reattached, Handsome Jack was practically on top of Rhys as he twisted it in an effort to test the shoulder joint as well as figure out how to take it back off. “The arm lock responds to a command from the eye.” Rhys tapped the delicate skin underneath for effect. “When I first got the arm, I kept wrenching it out. Well, other people were doing it to. Someone down in Robotics got tired of fixing it and gave me a patch.”

“Hmph,” Handsome Jack mumbled. He grabbed Rhys by the chin and tilted his head backwards. Rhys took the opportunity to scan the CEO. Nothing came up. Not surprising, seeing that Rhys’s access level was dreadfully low. He might have freaked out if something came up. That would be strange and weird and he was not prepared ever to learn something unexpected about Handsome Jack. Rhys wasn’t an idiot. Who knew what would have come up if the information wasn’t so encrypted that his ECHOeye couldn’t even register it.

That’s how the rescue mechanic team found them. Handsome Jack straddling Rhys and their faces inches apart. Jack took his sweet time moving and Rhys just sat their unable to process what happened after the moment was broken. 

Before Jack exited, he turned to Rhys and said, “Swing by my office some time and we can see what we can do about that neural port. And by swing by I mean I want to see you tomorrow.”


	2. And Now Back to the Office

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Handsome Jack makes good on his offer. Rhys cannot resist.

Rhys woke up on the couch tucked under a blanket. He sat up blearily and looked around, taking in the sight of his own apartment soaked in the blue night light. He couldn’t remember how he got home or really how. His cybernetic arm was still attached. Shaking his head, he clambered off the couch and retreated to his room where his bed waited. And what a sweet, comfortable bed it was. So warm, so inviting, so nothing like an elevator.   
Rhys woke up for the second time with Vaughn pounding on the door and his alarm blaring from where his arm was charging. He rolled out of bed and hooked his arm in, silencing the alarm. For the other interruption to his sleep, he yelled through the door, “Jesus Vaughn, what do you want?” He opened the door to give his friend the properly disapproving look needed for the situation.   
Vaughn was panting and flushed. “Dude, you won’t believe what happened.” He hadn’t been so excited since the newest computer slash calculator slash prescription glasses came out.  
“So tell me,” Rhys asked. “But first let me get coffee.” He pushed past Vaughn and bee-lined for the kitchen where a pot was already brewed and waiting. Once his coffee had been successfully made, Rhys gestured for Vaughn to tell him the news.  
“Handsome Jack,” Vaughn said. “He announced that he wanted a PA. Anyone interested has to show up at his office this morning where he will hand-pick his new assistant. And I was thinking that you Rhys, should totally go.” Vaughn handed him a folder with Rhys’ own resume in it.   
“Don’t you want to try for this job?” Rhys asked.  
Vaughn shook his head. “I am happy as an accountant. You, on the other hand, have big dreams and qualms about killing people. This is the break you need. I’m doing this as your number one forever bro.”  
Rhys didn’t have time to answer before his palm-computer beeped. A new message popped up on his screen. There was no indication of who sent it nor was there a subject line. Rhys opened it with only slight hesitation.  
“Take the job,” the message said. “It’s meant for you.” Rhys showed it to Vaughn.   
“Funny,” he said. “You’re really dedicated to this whole job thing aren’t you.”   
Vaughn shook his head. “I’m an accountant not a programmer. Whoever sent you that message is totally right and also totally not me.” 

The two were walking to work when Rhys remembers a fragment of what happened the night before. “I think I had a dream about meeting Handsome Jack in an elevator.”  
“Just another sign that this is a great idea,” Vaughn replied, only half-listening.   
“I don’t know man, it was a really weird dream. I think it ended with Jack telling me to come to his office the next morning,” Rhys explained.  
Vaughn laughed. “You should probably not tell Handsome Jack that you’ve been dreaming about him. He might take that as weird and throw you out the airlock.”  
“That’s the real goal. Not getting thrown out of an airlock,” Rhys said. Now on top of the uneasiness left behind by his dream, Rhys was afraid of being thrown out the airlock.

Handsome Jack’s office door was closed but a huge crowd was milling around outside his door. Rhys recognized a few people from his department and a few people from every other department on Helios. Obviously Vaughn hadn’t been the only one who had seen Handsome Jack’s announcement about the PA job.   
A screen on the ceiling flickered to life. Handsome Jack’s grinning face looked down on the employees. “Good morning mindless ambition slaves! Today you’re here to win. Well, one of you is here to win. The rest of you are just going to go home the losers you truly are.” The crowd murmured, excited. “You will be called in by name in no particular order, starting with anyone with a cybernetic arm or ECHOeye.”  
That was, weirdly specific.  
But hey, if Rhys had the chance to go first and get ahead of the competition, he was going to take that chance. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd and to the door to Jack’s office.   
Rhys was suitably impressed by the office but wasn’t that the point of the office, to impress any schmuck with the misfortune of getting invited to an audience with the CEO himself.  
“I was hoping you would show up,” Handsome Jack said.  
Startled, Rhys asked, “We’ve met?”  
Jack laughed. “Of course we’ve met. We met last night in the elevator. The one that broke down. Don’t tell me you don’t remember.”  
Rhys scratched the back of his head and looked as embarrassed as possible. “I really don’t remember anything past about midnight last night. Maybe you’re thinking of someone else?”  
“Maybe this will jog your memory,” Jack said. He turned his computer monitor to face Rhys. Video feed was playing, from an elevator. Someone who looked very much like Rhys was underneath someone who looked very much like Handsome Jack.  
“We didn’t,” Rhys hesitated. “We, um.”  
Jack sighed forlornly. “No, we did not have sex if that’s what you’re wondering. Why do you think I sponsored this horse and pony show. I really had to cross my fingers and hope that you would show up. You know how embarrassing it would be for me if you didn’t show up?”  
“So you don’t want a PA?” Rhys asked.  
“Only idiots need PAs. I’ve already got a perfectly terrifying secretary. Why would I need a PA too?” responded Jack. “But onto more interesting things. Let’s pause the shoptalk for a minute.”  
“What do you want to talk about?” Rhys asked. “My name is Rhys, by the way.”  
“Okay Rhys. What are your feelings about me and your neural port getting to know each other?” Jack asked.  
Rhys blanched. “What kind of personal are we talking about? I’m don’t really think that I’m supposed to put things in it. Its for like, updates for my eye and stuff.”  
Handsome Jack stood up. “Here,” he said, gesturing to the chair, not his chair, but the one for guests. “Take a seat.” Rhys sat down. There was only so far he was willing to go when it came to refusing the Handsome Jack in Handsome Jack’s office. “Would you believe me if I told you I made this program just for you?” He held out one of those nasty file drives that fit so perfectly and painfully in Rhys’ neural port.   
“Not really?” he ventured.  
Handsome Jack nodded his approval. “You’re smart kid, I like that.” His hand shot out to grab Rhys’ jaw. Rhys could no longer flinch away from the file drive as Jack shoved it into his neural port. Everything went black as the program run. The last thing Rhys remember was the sound of Handsome Jack’s laughter reverberating around the room.

Yvette was the one to wake him up. Rhys blinked up at her, both eyes stubbornly blurry. He can tell it’s her by her voice. Rhys was pretty sure that the only body part functioning at the moment was his ears. “Why the hell’d you miss lunch? I had to pay! Me!” she ranted. He would have paid attention to her complaints but his head was killing him.  
“My head’s super foggy right now,” he said before passing back out.

The next time time Rhys woke up, both Vaughn and Yvette were standing over him wearing varying expressions of concern.   
“Bro, are you okay?” Vaughn asked. “You’ve slept for like, fifteen hours. I didn’t think you could do that.” For years Rhys had been an incurable insomniac, a napper more than a sleeper. He could only wonder what happened with Handsome Jack.   
But Rhys was going to leave it as that, a wonder, something to spend some silent morning pondering. Not matter what, he wasn’t going to let thoughts Handsome Jack consume him.  
In the back of his mind, a vague concern about his health in relation to Hyperion’s CEO but Yvette was handing him a drink and Vaughn was making jokes. Rhys made the executive decision that any worry could wait. He was fine. He would be fine.  
Rhys, too busy pretending not to worry, did not notice the blinking light in his periphery that signaled a new message.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to leave your own prompt on tumblr. im damianwayneprotectionsquad and i want to write 4 u.


End file.
